South Atlantic Fisheries Management Meeting 12/1/08

WOW ...

The SAFMC (South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council) began last Monday in Wilmington, NC.

I just got back from attending - boy were my eyes opened up!

First, I need to preface this report with a little personal history:
I have not been going to Fisheries council meetings for the last 10 or 12 years.
However, when I was going regularly, I was an appointed member of the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission and on the SAFMC (South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council) AP (advisory panel) for Wreckfish.

Back then, no-one was really organized, there was a lot of wasted paperwork and talk, organizational confusion, and we the fishermen were looked down upon as a bunch of ..... (you can fill in the blank).

Furthermore, many of the council members were jealous that the fishermen, as a whole, were a lot less educated than them, and made a lot more money than they did, so there was a lot of jealousy as well.

(Personal things happen in my life and I had to leave the business for a while,
and am just getting back into it. So I had an excuse for not attending.)

Having been away from the process for a while, and going back, I was astonished!!

The council and its members are VERY well organized. Laptop computers replacing paper, and assistants making real time changes to documents and proposals during the meetings.
The council’s efficiency has increased by hundreds of percentage points.

What I found distressing is the fishermen have, (in my opinion) not moved forward one bit.

It was as if I hade entered back into a time warp.

Nothing had changed ..... absolutely no organization, no representation, no spokesperson or watchdogs, or anything else!

.... Heck .... I could count them on one hand!

After all I have heard over the years of complaints that the regulations are putting everyone out of business, that they have no chance, that they are getting regulated out of the industry, etc.
You would think the room would have been packed - the weather was WINDY, so no-one was out fishing.

I was there and I have a broken back!

All the complaining and NO participation was absolutely shocking!

Without the industry having any kind of representation, it looks to me like
the beginnings of a slaughter.

Go to Google and type in livestock slaughter – watch any one or more of the YouTube videos.
In your mind’s eye, change the livestock for a picture of a fisherman.

In fact, click the link below and go here NOW. Watch one or two of the videos before coming back and reading the rest of this.

Here is the link ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjaheNptvds

Go ahead …. Go there for a few minutes.

You will see how the livestock is lead down thru a maze of hallways, and the hallways are ever so slightly getting narrower and narrower, leading you down the path so narrow that individual passage is the only way to continue -
.... to the slaughterhouse.

Death is imminent; you just don’t know it yet.

Pretty gruesome picture isn’t it?

Yet, if the livestock (fishermen) understood what was at the end of the isles, and they collectively joined together, they could easily push down the barriers, crush the executioners, and have a passage to freedom.
Pretty gruesome picture isn’t it?

This is the type of picture I was left with in my mind's eye by the end of the first day of meetings. Fishermen going to slaughter.

If fishermen don't "get with it" soon, they will ultimateld be completely wiped out of the fishing industry. The only ones that will be left standing will be the ones who go to the meetings, participate, and become part of the solution.

I found out a lot more about the Magnusun- Stevens act, how it was put together, who put it together, etc. The next post will have a little history about those who put it together and what can be done (in my opinion) about it.

Stay tuned .... more to come.